Vile is a little older, and trying to put the period that Crutchfield is still living behind him.Modestly built with weary yet intense eyes obscured by long tangles of stoner-guy locks, hes a walking mumblecore redux of classic rock.
Viles excellent 2011 album Smoke Ring for My Halo, his breakout release and fourth overall, begins with a middle-of-the-night ballad called Babys Arms, where the Philadelphia native talk-sings over desolate guitar-picking and storm clouds of disembodied ambient noise about the sanctity of his babys arms. Vile dispenses with lyrical cleverness; his songs are about whatever the titles say theyre about. Disappointing exception: The new Wakin on a Pretty Daze includes a track called Air Bud, where the reference to the sporty canine film franchise is a nonsequitur.) Viles songwriting specialty is plausibly articulating the inarticulate inner monologue of a young, sensitive American male; he feels as deeply as Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, but hes just a regular guy, and doesnt have the luxury of Nicholas Sparks turning those feelings into best-selling prose. Ellipses are the point of his lyrics.) He digs his fists into his jean pockets in search of the right phrase to sum up whats in his head and, miraculously, finds it: I get sick of just about everyone and I hide in my babys arms is the definitive Kurt Vile sentiment, a snapshot of alienation given a brief respite. Kurt Vile Wakin On A Pretty Daze Rapidshare Driver Whos NowA former forklift driver whos now an indie star with a wife and two young daughters he licensed Babys Arms for a bank commercial a few years back so he could afford Vile knows something about being accepted without ever truly belonging. Wakin on a Pretty Daze (which is out next week, though you can listen to it ), is hardly the sort of record that cool-kid types seem likely to embrace in 2013. At a time when the most heralded indie music is drawing from chart pop, EDM, and RB, Vile remains staunchly committed to the traditional rock-band format. ![]() On Wakin, the guitar tones are situated in an idiosyncratic, previously unexplored middle ground between Crazy Horse, Dire Straits, and Stings Nothing Like the Sun. And there are a lot of those tones several tracks approach or surpass the 10-minute mark, due to generously extended passages where the guitars dont solo so much as meander subliminally, the instrumental equivalent of Viles laconic vocals. Before I heard the rest of the record, I was obsessed with the opening track, a twangy, deliberately paced mosey where Vile sings, in highly Kurt Vile-esque fashion, Im diggin layin low, low, low dig, dig in to these lives that we are livin livin low, lackadaisically so. Not exactly poetry on the page, but Vile delivers his lines with the naturalistic ease of Joe Mantegna breathing life into David Mamets tersest utterances. But its the songs second half thats the star attraction, even if it hardly sounds any more impressive on paper: Its just a descending guitar line with some medium-impressive solos played over it. ![]() On Girl Called Alex, two or three guitars bleed in and out of each other, like a 13th Floor Elevators record, because Easter Everywhere is what dudes like Vile play when theyre alone and thinking about some girl they knew once. Wakin on a Pretty Daze is a defiantly solitary record; its made for playing in the car when youre driving past the house where you grew up, or where the first person you ever loved once lived. It evokes a sweet melancholy you cant resist marinating in, so long as the blurred, sluggishly driving music never stops bounding erratically forward., Vile said that Wakin on a Pretty Daze, as opposed to Smoke Ring, is just 100 percent my voice all the time. The story suggests that Vile felt pressure from his label, Matador, to make Smoke Ring more pop-oriented, but I interpret this quote somewhat differently. On Wakin, Vile has taken his affecting fumbling one step forward into full-on musical expressionism. Hes elongated his ellipses as far as they can go, and filled them with squiggles of haze and acres of wide-open space. Its probably as close to experiencing what the world is like inside Viles head next to actually being Kurt Vile. In my mind, Wakin on a Pretty Daze is a complement to one of my other favorite albums of the year, Waxahatchees Cerulean Salt. Like Wakin, Cerulean Salt comes out of a singular Philadelphians headspace: Katie Crutchfield writes about her mid-20s existence the daily drinking, the nightly hookups, the morning-after inventories of the previous days mistakes with an eloquence that Vile doesnt even attempt to muster. Kurt Vile Wakin On A Pretty Daze Rapidshare Iso 4762 DinBs en iso 4762 din 912 fasteners. Favorite lyric from my favorite: Wont you sleep with me every night for a week and wont you just let me pretend this is the love I need. Im 35 and have been happily married for nearly five years, and that still gives me recognition chills.) Vile and Crutchfield approach similar subject matter from different perspectives and divergent musical voices.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |